


Weary and Burdened

by SalaciousCrumble



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Catharsis, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Aid, First responder scenario, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Nature, Original Character Death(s), Post-Canon, Terrorism, Tim Drake (minor character), Victor Stone (minor character)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:29:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29500665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SalaciousCrumble/pseuds/SalaciousCrumble
Summary: When an act of terrorism occurs at a cybernetics company, Bart's already there—as both an intern, and as Kid Flash.[On being a first responder, the emotional fallout, and catharsis after. And, having a dual identity.]
Relationships: Bart Allen/Jaime Reyes
Comments: 9
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Bart is a first responder at the site of (ideological) domestic terrorism. The first half of the story is dark. It’s realistic.** People die, and it’s sad. There are some semi-graphic depictions of explosion-related injuries, although I wouldn't call them gory, and there’s a clinical quality to most of the observations. **If you’re having a rough time right now, I suggest proceeding with caution. <3 **
> 
> The second half is about the emotional fallout for both Bart and Jaime, catharsis, and coming to terms to things. This is set in the same universe and timeframe as my fluffy “Week” series (which you don’t need to read).

He was at his desk, bent over and rooting through the deep drawer that (barely) contained his stash of snacks, when the blast ripped through the building and slammed him sideways into a desk divider. Naturally, Bart's first thought was, _ Oh fuck _ . His second was a jumble of  _ What, how here, no.  _ His third was less an active thought and more the realization that his eyes were open but everything was black; he had to clamp down fiercely on the resultant stirring of panic.

Shakily, he felt around; his phone had been crunched in his pocket, but he could see a sliver of light in the corner of the shattered screen. That meant it was dark because the lights were off and there weren’t any windows nearby. Gradually, though, his vision adjusted and he was able to make out basic shapes.

Over and around him, he shifted away pieces of desk dividers and chairs and...ceiling tiles? He worked his jaw because his ears felt clogged and there was a painfully high-pitched tone, but it didn’t do anything except remind him that he’d just been thrown into something unyielding. Lucky for him, he could get his bearings faster than most people.  _ Explosion _ .

His fifth thought was the fulcrum for what would happen over the next half hour, and had been drilled into him over decades: _Get up._ _Recon, assess, and execute._ He fought through some dizziness on his climb to his feet, took two deep breaths, and flowed into speed—into relative time. 

The filing cabinet that normally rolled under his desk had tipped over, the metal dented but mostly intact. He found his suit ring hidden at the back by feel. The slick teflon expanded with a distinct odor after its long period of compression and disuse, and the smell lingered briefly on his skin as he slipped into it. At least the smell and feel helped ground him. He snapped his eye shield into place just as exposure to air finished curing the polymer.

_ Need light.  _ As if on cue, the generator buried half a mile away must have kicked on, because sickly pale green emergency lighting flickered on in the main walkways.  _ Good enough.  _

The work area around him was half flattened, everyone’s personal items scattered and crushed. Sitting closer to the middle of the building was both a blessing and a curse; there was less glass to lacerate people, but also less ventilation and fewer good ways out. Seven other people sat in his desk section, but most had gone to a meeting on the first floor, and he wasn’t sure about his fellow interns. He wanted to find them.

_ Recon first _ , his training said. 

He took off, running a standard survey pattern through the corridors, workspaces, open areas, and labs he knew after three months as an intern. The pattern crossed familiar paths, like from his desk to the bathroom, or to the closest kitchenette, or to the lab where he spent half his time. Those paths that still  _ existed _ were rapidly filling with smoke that seared his lungs and tasted like wall plaster and burnt wires. He sprinted through open spaces littered with debris that forced him to run along walls crumbling in slow motion, beside sooty ceiling tiles barely clinging to their frames.

He completed a circuit of the entire building in just under seven seconds, slowed a little by rerouting around debris. The worst hit zone was the front of the building, near reception.

In the lobby, the twisted steel frame of some kind of vehicle—itself, half warped from heat and pressure,  _ Jesus— _ was the biggest indicator of what happened. The tall front windows had been pulverized, which meant microshards like fiberglass could be caught in the hot updraft. At least the windows being blown out meant some of the smoke and heat was dissipating, although it could still be lethal for anyone who stayed in the area long. He needed something over his mouth and nose _.  _

_ Call it in now _ .

“Kid Flash to Watchtower. There’s been an explosion at Mass Cybernetics in Lowell; it was strong as hell and involved a vehicle detonation.” He glanced down at one of the bodies by his feet, mouth drying up. “I need major help with rescue and recovery, putting out fires—everything. There are a lot of people still in the building.”

Left unsaid:  _ I’m about to go do my thing. _

It sounded like Connor on the comm. “Copy that, KF. We’ll get everyone we can down there ASAP. Stay in touch.”   
  


Bart nodded habitually, taking his finger off the comm trigger. He knelt partly to get out of the worst of the smoke, wincing as the splintered edges of a once-polished reception desk dug into his knees and gloves. Laura and Jacob had been, at most, marginally protected by the desk and hadn’t made it. Two other people in the lobby, probably guests, were… _._ gone. He had to distance himself mentally and physically.

As he knelt by Laura again, a shard of glass pierced his knee. The candy bowl from the desk had shattered either during the explosion or when it hit the ground, its contents now congealed black caramel on the floor; a misshapen lump of coal sticking to the carpet. He draped what remained of Laura’s extra sweater over her body. He didn’t have anything for Jacob, so he moved on.

Beyond what used to be the glass doors at reception, there were three more bodies in the big connecting hallway—people Bart didn’t recognize, and didn’t want to recognize. The I.D. badges on their lanyards or pulleys had melted.

He put his hands on his knees for a split second, suddenly choking on the smoke. Everything was burnt; everything was blackened.  _ People _ were—

_ Why here. _

—People needed his help. He needed to get through the worst areas fast and triage the rest.

The fire suppression sprinklers finally kicked on, briefly startling him and showering him with cold water, although a lot of the pipes were broken. He’d have to watch his footing in areas with slick debris, but at least the water would settle some of the plaster and insulation dust mixed in with the smoke.

Connor came through again. “Tower to KF, is there an SCBA or at least a rebreather, if you stay out of the worst heat?”

Bart cleared his throat before replying, hoping it sounded less scratchy afterward. “No. But I can make some kind of mask, and I’ll be fine.”

“Then make the mask. We’ll bring more equipment.”

Although Bart acknowledged it, he didn’t plan on going out of his way to do it. He could handle the conditions and CO exposure until everyone else showed up, and his lungs would heal as fast as always.

He continued to clear the worst hit zone, which was the inner part of the blast radius. Only one person inside the area had survived. Given the man’s proximity to an unstable wall, Bart had to risk moving him, but every one of their usual pulls and carries would only cause further harm.  _ Pick one _ , he instructed himself. The man’s side and front had been facing the explosion.  _ Bridal, it is _ .

Outside, he slowed to a stop instead of just skidding, laying the man down as gently as he could on the summer-dry grass at the very back of the parking lot, willing him to survive. At least if he slipped into shock, he wouldn’t freeze to death.

Bart looked back at the building, watching the flames licking up the sides of the remaining walls; the dark smoke coiling and billowing out the empty window frames. It was definitely too big and too hot to try extinguishing with a vortex.

The only above-ground power line near the building lay sparking on the pavement, but at the moment it wasn’t his top priority.

As he raced back inside, he propped open strategic exit doors (the few still standing) with chunks of concrete. It would bring fresh air deeper into the hallways and give survivors something to aim at through the gloom, which was more worrying than feeding smaller fires at this point. He’d also try to increase the amount of smoke he drew in his wake. 

His heart leapt at seeing some first floor survivors crawling down the hallway, smart enough to move low. It wouldn’t keep them from further injury by debris, but it was a good start. They were still shouting and half-panicked as they tried to navigate with only dim emergency lighting. 

The people moving too slowly, he just scooped up and rushed out. He rambled off something reassuring to the others and pointed them in the right direction. 

He found six more people on the first floor who could be moved. One of the men was stumbling and had a bleeding head wound. He was a huge guy, too big to carry, so Bart grabbed him by the elbow to attach him to someone else who was ambulatory. “You’re going to be alright, Sir.” 

Blinking, he realized he sounded more like Barry. At least his secret identity would stay that way.

Continuing on, he effortlessly dodged a woman’s flailing elbows as he tried to calm her down. She looked low priority for triage, but she wouldn’t be for long if she hyperventilated much longer. “I’m going to get you out of here, Ma’am.” Bending, he brought her up in a standard firefighter carry.

Outside, he noted a few new people had joined those he’d run out earlier. Some of the less injured were moving away and looked ready to bolt. He could understand why, given what people saw on the news every week. 

But he also knew there wasn’t a second device—he’d checked everywhere, including the cars in the parking lot—and with only two storeys, further building collapsing wouldn’t be an issue. What  _ would _ be a problem was EMS having to track down people who’d run off more injured than shock and adrenaline told them, and loved ones coming to the scene because responders couldn’t check them off a list.

“Everyone, stay here,” he instructed. “Stay  _ way  _ back, no matter what, but you should stay here until EMS arrives to be counted and treated.”

He’d raised his voice to be heard and was a little surprised by how hoarse it came out—that, and it was getting harder to draw a full breath without coughing. No matter how fast he healed, he was sucking down lungful after lungful of burning chemicals.

Just like everyone else still in the building.  _ Step it up, Allen. _

The remaining first floor survivors couldn’t or shouldn’t be moved, except for three who also couldn’t safely stay where they were. There was too much debris to drag them all the way out. With practiced care, he slid each person onto flat pieces of doors and cube dividers, cleared a path as best he could, and dragged them into a more structurally sound area with better ventilation. 

When he was done, he stopped with his hands on his knees to cough. His head was hurting. 

The second floor posed different challenges, most a lot harder—including fewer chances to pull people and more need to carry them. At least one of the stairwells looked stable.

Bart carried someone out. Back inside and up the stairs; down and out with someone bleeding over his shoulders. In. And out. Training and instincts propelled him. The number of people at the back of the parking lot was growing, and he was relieved to see most of them were following his instructions. Some of the less injured were helping each other. 

“Help’s almost there,” Connor announced in his ear, telling Bart to hold on.

Then he found one of his mentors, Li Wei, face-down in the bathroom. A water line had ruptured and was rapidly pooling in the spaces between dense sections of debris. Bart moved the half-demolished panels of wood and plastic off the man’s back and checked to see if his nose and mouth were clear of the water. They were, but he didn’t know for how much longer. Grunting and sweating from the effort, he carefully levered the heavy piece of ceiling up and off, revealing predictable crushing damage from the waist down. Yeah, Li Wei needed treatment  _ yesterday _ .

Bart bowed his head. The situation was worse than the first floor survivors. Moving him without a backboard or even a neck brace would almost _definitely_ make things a hell of a lot worse. 

Biting his lip, he looked around at his options—anything to reroute or dam the flow of water. He laid out heavy chunks of porcelain and concrete by his friend, then broke into the metal sanitary pad dispenser lying dented on the floor and stuffed those into the gaps. It would keep the man from aspirating water or worse until the EMTs could get to him. Hopefully. 

It was a risk, but it was a calculated one. Bart was trained for this and had (too much) experience. He knew how to assess and treat what he could. He knew the most likely fatal injuries at this point would be blast lung and abdominal. So when he found his friend and fellow intern Katya in one of the worst hit areas of the second floor, he knew she wouldn’t survive.

He couched beside her anyway, ruthlessly compacting everything he felt into a tiny cube and pushing it away. “Help is here, Ma’am.” He managed to play his part through a tightly clenched jaw. “Let’s get you out of here.” 

She didn’t cry out as he got his arms under her and lifted, but her shock was typical and it would distance some of the pain. Outside, he laid her down near to, but slightly apart from, the other badly wounded. He didn’t want to scare the others, but he didn’t want Katya to be...all alone, either.

Maybe it was that awful thought which led to his biggest mistake. When he stood up, he looked down at her body on the grass. He stared at her horrifyingly burned face for a moment in standard time, overlaid with a picture in his mind from their lunch together yesterday. In that same moment of clarity, Katya’s less injured eye focused on his face.

“Bart?” She mouthed at him through charred lips. But it wasn’t really a question.

He sank to his knees. “Yeah,” he said quietly, because there was no point in denying it—least of all to a dying woman. “Yeah, it’s me. Just...give me a minute, okay? I gotta go get more people.” 

Into the building and out again—except this time, he threw up in the corner of the stairwell. He hacked and heaved and spit up sooty mucus and bile, eyes welling up, and he did it at speed because he  _ had to _ , because more people needed his help. He beat his fist against the wall before forcing himself back into autopilot.

More people. More smoke. More screaming in the dark interior spaces. 

A nearby man grabbed his arm unexpectedly, yanking on it hard enough that Bart slid on the wet debris and went down, slicing his thigh. He pulled two weeping people out from under their desks, which were the only pieces of furniture still mostly intact in the surrounding rubble. He conscripted a woman with a cybernetic arm and a clear head to help dig another person out. 

For everyone he came across who hadn’t made it, he allowed himself to close his eyes for a brief moment out of respect, and then moved on.

He’d just set another person down on the grass—one of the last few he could manage without help—when over the rest of the noise, he heard two, then three fire engines wailing up the drive. 

_ Thank God.  _ More responders would be chasing them. He knew their response time was shaved down to the absolute minimum for normal people. Just, in situations like these, Bart slipped in and out of relative time too much to track how long it was for the rest of the world.

When the engines roared up, Bart dashed over to meet their crews, rattling off where the remaining survivors were, their conditions as he assessed them, and any salient details about the debris. He expected to run in with them, but talking over the squads’ shouting and the loud growl of the now idling engines scraped at his raw throat and made him start coughing again. It wasn’t a pretty sound.

He might’ve gone in with them anyway, but a familiar authoritative voice called his name. “K.F.!”

Just hearing it, half the weight on Bart’s shoulders sloughed off. If Drake was there, it meant the rest of the cavalry was too, or would be in a few seconds.

“Am I glad to see you,” Bart rasped as they approached one another. Normally they stood a few feet apart while in uniform, but he craved even a little bit of contact. Anything good; something not awful. So instead of stopping, he drew close enough for their arms to brush on one side. 

“Squads fully briefed?” Drake asked.

Bart nodded, tensing his upper body in an effort to keep from coughing and mostly successful.

Drake put a hand on his shoulder. The way he squeezed it meant that Bart’s expression must have been pretty bleak. The angle of his arm also served to hide their conversation from everyone else. 

“You okay?”

“Not really,” Bart admitted. “I never would have thought, not in a million years….” His gaze drifted to the gaping front maw in the still-burning remains of the building; to the bodies now being draped in sheets and cordoned off in the empty parking spaces. They couldn’t even put them on the ruined sidewalk. He’d spent 40 hours a week in that place for the past three months, and now the rebar skeleton extruded through the concrete like claws. 

He looked back at Drake. “But I guess you never do. Worst kind of surprise.”

“Worse, still, because you know people,” Drake said, his tone matter-of-fact but underpinned by compassion. He was almost never cold, unlike his boss.

Bart gave a slight nod, trying to ignore the _ people _ part for now and grasping for objectivity. “There was a vehicle involved. I’m thinking high-order explosive, but it must have been small.”  _ Or the whole building would’ve been flattened. _

“Agreed. And...someone’s already taking credit.”

Bart’s head whipped up. “ _ Who? _ ”

“An anti-cybernetics group, biological purists calling themselves NoRo—no significant social media presence or an obvious forum. No indication of who their military connections are. I haven’t seen this level of in-person organizing, this level of paranoia since….” Drake shook his head abruptly. “I’m sorry. Nobody could’ve seen this coming.”

Bart shrugged the hand off his shoulder and took a step back. The touch wasn’t comforting anymore; now it just felt patronizing, and shaking it off was the bare minimum required to quell his flash of anger.

“Doesn’t fucking matter,” he spat. “There are still—”  _ a bunch of dead people I know.  _ “It still happened. And you know what’s worse?” 

He felt his eyes narrow, knowing they’d likely darkened as well. “The people who did it think cybernetics, think cyborgs like Vic, are the enemy. The same people who probably  _ welcomed _ the real enemy to Earth fifteen years ago, and again, and again after that, because they don’t have a  _ fucking clue. _ ” 

He’d raised his scratchy voice enough to prompt Drake to clamp a hand around his forearm in a fast, tight grip—one he couldn’t shake off. The warning was fair.

“People who commit acts like this never do,” his friend said evenly.

Bart’s head was really starting to pound, and his angry speech had pretty much shredded his vocal cords. Normally, feeling so tired and angry and frayed all at once would prompt a runthrough of his basic checklist: food, sleep,  _ sufficient _ food, and suit integrity. 

But of course it wasn’t any of those things. The last time he could remember feeling this way was after the Chile quake, and before that when Jaime was—and both of those situations were different for a number of reasons.

Bart nodded slightly at Drake’s words and grated out, “I should do some crowd control.”

Drake returned the nod, releasing his arm. “Why don’t you take the public, stay out of the smoke? In fact, you should have medical clear you first. I’ll take logistics.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Bart said, knowing his lungs weren’t the only reason, and grateful. It was hard to give up the illusion of control, the drive to keep helping, but at the moment he couldn’t do much besides ferry supplies between the stations or take the less injured to local hospitals. The most badly hurt were being hustled into newly-arriving ambulances or still being treated at the scene by fire crews and EMS. 

When he glanced over at the largest triage spot, they were covering another body with a sheet—but he saw that Li Wei was still alive.  _ Please stay that way _ , he thought desperately.

_ Note to self: Ask Jaime again how he does it, even as a GP. Also: Give Jaime the biggest fucking hug. _

...His eyes snapped wide open _. _

“Sssshit, shit, shit,” he hissed, moving away from everyone else. Clearing his aching throat, or trying to at least, he tapped his comm. “KF to Blue, you there?”

He paused, hating the wait even more than usual, drumming the fingers of his other hand against his thigh—screw it, he should try to get ahead of it. “Hey, Blue, just—I’m okay.”

A few moments later, that beautiful voice sounded through his earpiece. Hushed and obviously trying to be discreet, the worry in Jaime’s voice was still achingly clear. “What do you mean you’re okay, what are you talking about?”

“There was um...something happened at work.” Bart winced. “An explosion.” He heard Jaime’s sharp inhalation, could picture the look of shock on his face fast melting into fear.

“ _ Are you hurt? _ ”

“No, I’m fine,” he hedged.

Jaime’s reply was almost immediate; professional and efficient. “I’m on my way. Get checked out.”

They knew each other too well. “I’m  _ fine _ ,” Bart tried to reassure, aware that if their positions were reversed, it wouldn’t work on him, either.

Jaime must have already been close to an exit when he answered his comm, because Bart heard the sound of plasma engines throttling up to full burn. “I swear to God, mi amor, I can  _ hear _ what you sound like—get checked out.” He pressed, with a lot less equanimity than before.

Involuntarily, Bart closed his eyes; Jaime was scared enough to call him  _ my love _ on what could’ve easily been a team channel. “I will,” he agreed gently. “I’ll see you soon.” 

Longingly he thought, g _ et here soon _ , but he couldn’t say it without worrying Jaime more.

When he turned around, some dizziness made itself known. Given his symptoms and exposure, he could probably, definitely, use some oxygen. They could all agree on that. He also needed to find a Leaguer to clear him, preferably before Jaime got there.

And he’d do all that, but first, he needed to talk to someone else.

“It’s good to hear your voice, man,” Victor sighed out in answer.

Bart’s shoulders slumped. “You too, dude. More than you know. ...Hey, don’t take this the wrong way,” he said hoarsely, “but I’m really glad you’re not here right now. You should stay in Miami,” he advised. Trying to keep Vic away from the scene was most likely futile, but he’d be a bad friend if he didn’t.

If Bart was taking it hard, Vic would be devastated. He knew everyone at the company and had partnered with them for years.

“I’m already en route,” Vic said evenly.

Bart rubbed his hands over his face, sliding his fingers up under the eye shield. The (stupidly) added soot made his eyes sting and caused him to start sneezing, because apparently hacking coughs weren’t enough.  _ Shit _ , there was no way his airway would be healed enough before Jaime touched down. 

“Were you in the building?” Vic asked, concerned.

He sneezed one last time, nostrils burning. “Yeah. I got everyone out that I could.”

“I know you did,” Vic replied immediately, and the certainty in his tone...it helped a little.

Bart’s attention was caught by the police SUVs blocking off the drive. A helicopter was already hovering over them. “Look, I’d better get back to crowd control. When you get here, just...I’m sorry. It’s bad. Really bad.” His voice wavered.

“...I heard.”

“Okay.” Bart nodded to himself. “Take care, man. Kid Flash out.”

He looked around for Cassie or Ed, or another Leaguer with more extensive medical training. Everyone he could see was deep into helping the regular EMTs. As soon as one of them had a break in the action, he’d get their attention.

In the meantime, he helped to set up more of the police barriers already at the scene, filling in the gaps with as much yellow caution tape as he could. It wasn’t easy to block off an area of this size, and he gave the local precincts credit for trying. Running at a quarter speed, he hadn’t been at it more than a minute when Jaime came to life in his ear again.

“I’m at the Houston Zeta. Did you—”

“I’m trying,” Bart hastened to reply. You’d think Jaime would know that the talking was hurting his throat. Then again, if he ever _ stopped _ talking, Jaime would think—so yeah, talking was good. He looked around again. “All the Leaguers and EMS have their hands more than full, so...can you just this once?” He knew it broke the rules, asking Jaime to treat a significant other.

Jaime’s voice was tight when he finally replied. “Get some oxygen and  _ sit down _ near EMS. Khaji says we’ll be there in four.” The words were followed by the rushing sound of a Zeta before the comm cut out.

Four minutes. Tortuously long to wait.

Rolling his neck, he looked over at the chaos around the most critical cases, then toward the large canopy and mobile field hospital they were setting up to help the less seriously injured. He walked, for once, over to them.

Bart stood next to a canopy pole and waved once. “Hi. Anyone know where a guy can find some O2?”

The closest doctor turned around, staring at him with wide eyes. “Oh my—Kid Flash. Oh, my Lord.” She visibly snapped back into medical professional, reminding him of Jaime. “Sit down over here, gloves off.”

He smiled at her. “That’s okay, I can just take it to go.”

“No, you need to sit down. I’m not saying that because I’m a fan—although my daughter is. It’s because you look bad and you sound worse.” She said, herding him in.

Without knowing exactly how, he found himself taking a seat in a folding chair. He looked first up at her, and then at the other people in chairs or on cots beside him, most of them connected to portable oxygen tanks. He was pretty sure he’d met the person on the far end before, and the reminder of where he was and who else was injured hurt worse than his body.

He leaned away when the doctor touched his cheek with some kind of cleansing wipe. “Oh—just, you know I can’t take my ‘mask’ off, right?” Bart said, finger-quoting, then coughed for a few seconds.

She pinned him with an unimpressed look—“As if anyone doesn’t know who you are underneath a tinted eye shield”—and resumed wiping away the soot around his nose and mouth. Like he was a baby who’d just spit up.

Bart almost rolled his eyes. _ Thanks, Jay, for having been both my legal guardian and also a totally not-anonymous celebrity. But still getting mad at me when— _

“Costume mask on, oxygen mask on,” the doctor agreed, slipping the strap over his head. “I’m Doctor Reynolds, by the way.”

“Hi, Kid Flash. Just so you know, it’s called a suit,” he said inside the oxygen mask.

She pulled off one of his gloves for him and started taking his pulse. “Sure. Try to relax. It’s okay if you need to cough.”

“It’s gonna be fast for sitting still. Like, 130,” he told her, causing the mask to slide up a little on the bridge of his nose. Without looking up from her watch, Dr. Reynolds pulled it back into place. It was weird to be sitting there talking with a normal doctor and not someone from the League.

“Headache? Shortness of breath?” She asked like she already knew the answers. Of course she did.

“Yeah. And all the other stuff.”

Now she looked back at him, frowning. “Do you know about carbon monoxide poisoning?”

Opening his mouth, he paused to do some quick mental calculations. 

“So there’s a guy in blue armor—” he coughed, “who’s gonna walk in here in about a minute. Could you please not say anything like that in front of him?”

The doctor raised an eyebrow. She must have been good at deciphering things said through a mask.

“Doctor-patient confidentiality?” He appealed.

All she did was hold up her stethoscope. “How do I get in your suit?”

“You’re gonna have to just listen through it.” It was possible for her to activate its stealth mode, but since he was already covered in black soot, it would hardly be noticable.

The doctor shook her head but set about listening to his lungs while he looked around again. His eyes settled on the ruined building, at the place where his desk would be. He was Bart sitting in the parking lot at work, but he was also Kid Flash helping at a disaster site. It made him feel...fractured.

“You have a couple tears in your cos—suit. May I?” The doctor caught his eyes and then fingered the one on his side, making Bart squirm. “I don’t see any lacerations, just some long cuts. You’re lucky.”

_ Yeah...just normal cuts and bruises now _ .

Dr. Reynolds pulled away. “How long were you in the building?”

He chuckle-coughed once, humorlessly, unable to help himself. He could still deflect. “Not long. I’m pretty fast; you might’ve heard.” It came out appropriately subdued.

“Well given your resting respiration rate, you must have inhaled a  _ substantial _ amount of carbon monoxide and other toxic gasses, so I’m a little surprised you’re sitting here talking,” she said, professional concern on her face.

He smiled. “I heal fast, too.”

Dr. Reynolds didn’t smile back, but she did slowly nod. “I’m starting to see that. Even so, I  _ strongly _ recommend that you go to a hospital for treatment. Smoke inhalation’s no joke. You must know that.”

He raised a hand to rub at his face again and bumped the oxygen mask.

The doctor shook her head, relenting. “At least five more minutes on the O2 and we’ll talk again.” She turned away to attend to other patients. More were trickling in.

Bart closed his eyes tiredly—then flicked them open again because he didn’t like what predictably waited there. He glanced down at his ungloved hand, pale against the dark soot color of his suit. He could still distinguish the blood flecked across his sleeve.

After what felt like an age, the sound of plasma engines landing hot  _ finally _ signaled the arrival of the one person he most wanted to see. He twisted his head around. A dozen meters away, Blue Beetle retracted his wings and their eyes met—relatively speaking. Bart sucked in a deep breath of his oxygen as Jaime hurried toward him.

“Blue,” he greeted, his voice breathy from relief rather than smoke. His hand moved to the front of his oxygen mask, ready to pull it away—when armored fingers slapped over his own. 

“Keep it on.” Jaime’s whole body was tense, holding onto a dozen things he clearly wanted to say but couldn't at the moment. He must have compromised with himself: “It’s really, really good to see you.”

“Hi,” said the doctor, suddenly standing  _ right _ beside them, acting suspiciously like someone who knew they were interrupting something important. “I’m Dr. Reynolds. You must be the ‘guy in the blue armor.’ Blue Beetle, right?”

“Uh, yeah. It’s...nice to meet you.” Jaime said, inching closer to Bart until their knees brushed. Out of the corner of his eye, Bart saw other people gawking at them with varying levels of intensity.

Dr. Reynolds turned to Bart. “You want me to fill him in?” 

She was nice. He’d still rather she not. “Nope, no, I’m good, thanks. In fact, my friend and I will just—” He finished by sticking his thumb out to the side, before realizing that with two of them on his case, he probably wasn’t going anywhere yet.

“You’re not going anywhere yet,” Jaime confirmed, then after a beat, “except the ‘Tower med bay. How long has he been on oxygen?” He asked Dr. Reynolds, who looked to Bart for permission. He nodded.

“About eight minutes. ...So I take it you have some experience with this, know what to watch for? Is there someone there who can handle respiratory therapy?”

“Yeah. This is part of what we do,” Jaime said with confidence.

“All right. At least two more minutes on that,” she told Bart, a little smile unfurling on her face, “and I’ll release you into the custody of your ‘friend _. _ ’”

Her tone and raised eyebrows were just excessive—accurate, but unnecessary. 

Still, shifting on his chair let him lean just a little into Jaime, who shifted his own weight back in return. Bart sighed out of his dry mouth and briefly touched his temple to the warm metal plates at Jaime’s hip. The bridge of his nose itched. Every mucus membrane in his body was getting more dehydrated by the second. His eyes and nose stung, and his head ached. 

Every bit of it was more than worth it. He didn’t know how many people he helped out, and he should keep it that way; then he couldn’t subtract when the official numbers started rolling in. 

“You should go check in with Drake,” he told Jaime, reluctantly.

“He can wait two minutes,” Jaime replied. He walked over to a big water cooler and returned with a full paper cup, a bendy straw, and a bunch of the wipes Dr. Reynolds had used to clean his face earlier. He handed it all over to Bart, who slipped the straw in under the mask and almost moaned (bad idea) at the lukewarm water. He drank half of it in one long draw, hoping it wasn’t the wrong thing to do.

Jaime had ripped the paper wrapper off one of the wipes. Bart noted his hesitation before Jaime handed it over and knew what he’d wanted to do instead—had maybe briefly considered doing. 

_ One more minute, _ he reminded himself. He started wiping off the rest of his face and his bare hand, which had been touching his suit and hair. 

Oh man, his  _ hair _ . Normally his modifications to the half-cowl kept it swept back out of the way, but now it was falling over his cheeks and eye shield in heavy, greasy chunks. And under that, he could tell the backs of his ears were filthy, but he couldn’t exactly get to them. 

“Do you think you could scrounge up a change of clothes for me?” He asked Jaime, just loudly enough to be heard over the mask; even if he was too quiet, Khaji Da would pick it up. It wasn’t an unusual request for two friends out of uniform, but in their suits, with people watching them…they’d had the discussion about not being each others’ public liabilities long ago.

“Sure. I’ll go find something,” Jaime said, but he hesitated even longer this time.

“Or not, it’s fine,” Bart amended hastily. “I can wait ‘till I leave.”

“There are civvies on the Watchtower….What is it?” Jaime asked when Bart looked at the ground. The thought of heading up to the ‘tower created an unhappy feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

“I’m not trying to skip out on medical stuff—I promise. I just don’t want to go somewhere that... _ continues _ all of this.” He gestured around them. “I don’t want the whole team watching me. ...For just a little while...I don’t want to be Kid Flash,” he realized, finishing in almost a whisper. 

Jaime reached out in an instinctive, aborted movement, and then the Blue Beetle casually put a hand on Bart’s shoulder instead. Like a comrade.

“There’s a regular clinic and a hospital not far from here.”

Bart shook his head quizzically. “C’mon, we both know that by the time they got down the triage list to me, I’d have healed already.”

Jaime blew out a frustrated sigh.

Carefully, Bart stood up. “Ten full minutes,” he said, turning off the oxygen valve and stripping off the mask. The aid station was getting busier as more people were transferred from the front lines. He turned to face Jaime directly so as to conceal their conversation. “I know how I sound, but I  _ feel _ okay. No CO symptoms, except for the headache,” he allowed. “Can we just—go somewhere else? Not the ‘Tower, not my apartment here,” he entreated.

“Home?”

The word brought a brief moment of longing, but it was overpowered by the knowledge that too many of their possessions were inextricably linked to their hero IDs. “...Later. Right now, I just want to get out, away, from all this. There’s too much at home that’s part of it.”

Jaime’s face was impassive under the armor. He turned and walked a few yards away. Bart waved once to Dr. Reynolds and mouthed a  _ thank you _ at her, then trailed after him uneasily.

“Blue Beetle to Drake. Kid Flash and I are taking off. Not sure where yet, and we’ll be off comms for a while. You’re gonna have to work without us.”

Bart closed his eyes and let his head fall back, relieved.

“Copy that,” Drake said to them both. “We’ve got it covered. And KF...you did an extraordinary job today.”

“More like a fucking amazing one,” Jaime muttered, making Bart smile despite himself. 

Then he glanced around the parking lot and his heart sank like a stone again. He felt guilty and ashamed for leaving when there was still so much to be done. Maybe they should stay another hour.

Jaime reclaimed his attention with a gentle prompt. “Any ideas on where you want to go?”

_ Somewhere without expectations. _ “I don’t know. Probably grab a change of clothes, but after that...just follow me?”

“Only if it’s at _ walking _ speed,” Jaime threatened without heat. “ _ Crawling _ , for you.”

“Sure, Grandpa,” he joked, but it came out flat. “Walking speed, it is.”

He knocked it down to professional marathon speed, which on flat ground he could keep up forever, shitty breathing or not. Jaime flew above him, and it made Bart wonder if Khaji Da was putting in extra effort to keep them aloft at less than 25 kph. The armor didn’t exactly have flaps.

Their path through town was fairly random by necessity, as he kept to the quietest streets possible to avoid an audience. Although the route zigged and zagged a little between blocks, he made sure it continued steadily away from the site.

Fortunately, they came across a Goodwill store. Bart signaled his intentions to Jaime, then used his speed  _ only  _ long enough to grab some sneakers, jeans, a tee, and a flannel off the racks. He made a mental note to pay the store later before he popped outside around the back. Jaime, hovering about five meters up, narrowed his eyes like he was judging something—probably Bart using his speed—but didn’t speak.

Look _. _ Bart wanted to change clothes as soon as he stopped running, so unless Jaime had his wallet tucked into a very private place inside his armor, there wasn’t really an alternative.

Rolling up the sneakers inside the clothes and tucking them under his arm for the time being, Bart kept going, cruising down side streets. He still didn’t know where he was headed or where he wanted to be. Definitely far enough away that he couldn’t hear the sirens or smell the smoke...but it couldn’t be halfway across the state, either, considering his whole body felt like crap. 

The problem was, every couple blocks there was another busy street ahead, forcing yet another awkward detour. Bart wanted to  _ leave _ , to  _ get out  _ and the more these figurative and literal roadblocks tried to stop him, the more determined he became. So he simply kept running, trusting his feet like he always had—and deeply grateful to Jaime for going along with his plan or lack thereof.

He crossed another intersection, springing over some bushes on the other side like an Olympic hurdler. 

“Oi, hold up,” Jaime called out to him.

“I’m not going that fast,” Bart protested.

“No, not that. C’mere.”

Bart spun neatly on the balls of his feet and jogged back to where Jaime had fallen off his tail. He stopped beside him to look at the road sign, which indicated an alternate turnoff for the state forest with the really long name.

“What about up there, the state forest? It’s pretty far ‘out and away’ for still being near the city.”

Bart tried to picture it, an amalgam of the many times he’d run through forests in this part of the country. Tall straight trees rising around them in all directions and big boulders scattered in between. The smell of dirt and green things, some probably sunbaked, some fresh.

Jaime continued. “It’s really big, and probably not too crowded this time on a weekday.”

“That sounds good. I want to be alone right now.”

“I know,” Jaime said simply.

“But—with you.”

“I know,” Jaime repeated, just as gently as the first time.

Bart nodded. “...Let’s check it out.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This started out as a possible idea for “Tuesday” in my little fluffy series, because I randomly decided I wanted to include “a sprinkling of angst.” And wow, that did not go as planned, because this spiraled out of control.
> 
> Disclaimer city: I’m not a first responder (of any kind) or medical professional. I used Bart’s speed healing to fudge a little on his O2 time and, obviously, physical recovery. Please correct me on anything I get wrong because I like knowing.
> 
> 2) Went with “Drake” for Tim (from the most recent YJ run) because it’s a decade later and I don’t love the Red Robin ID, either. Poor Tim, with his crappy names. For that matter, I don’t know that Bart would still be holding onto “Kid Flash,” but it was easier for now.
> 
> 3) You might have noticed that Bart uses the metric system despite living in the U.S. He grew up with it in the future and uses it for all his science-ing, so it made more sense to me.


	2. Chapter 2

Bart nodded. “...Let’s check it out.” 

He glanced at Jaime for confirmation, then turned up the road running parallel to the main one. It didn’t take them long to reach the outskirts of stores and private housing tracts that abutted the state-managed land. You could still hear the traffic, but it had diminished from foreground to background noise.

The air did smell good.

“Change?” Jaime asked, and Bart nodded. They both looked around and Bart did a quick scout before he vibrated into his new jeans and tee (with a motorcycle and  _ Speed Demon _ printed on it in neon green, because he had standards). It was hot enough that he tied the flannel loosely around his waist rather than put it on. He tried wrangling his suit back into his ring, but the damage was too extensive for it to respond properly. Growling, he bundled it up and stuffed it into his back pockets.

Jaime armored down, revealing his (plain) soft navy t-shirt and somewhat form-fitting jeans underneath; they were form-fitting because baggy clothes created uncomfortable wrinkles under the armor. (At least that’s what he told Bart, who was more than happy to accept any reason and never said a word about why it hadn’t been that way when they were younger.) Also, good thing Jaime had been wearing shoes.

The sight made his breath hitch, because it was the first time he’d seen Jaime’s face all day. Last night, they’d only had a video call, because Bart had been invited out with people and Jaime had an early rotation, so he hadn’t run down to Houston. The  _ what-if _ circled his mind, looking for a way in.

Jaime reached out first and Bart shuddered, wrapping his arms around Jaime in return and clinging to...everything. 

In a way, it was absurd. They’d been reunited at the site of a tragedy, but waited until they were standing at the end of some private lane in a Massachusetts suburb just to hold each other, because Bart didn’t want to go home. Because years ago, they made a decision to become entirely different people when they put on their respective armor. And today, he resented it a little. Maybe more than a little.

It must have been 30 seconds, or maybe a minute, of standard time later that they both let go. Two dog walkers were passing nearby, politely looking away and chatting.

Briefly, Bart played with one of Jaime’s hands. “Let’s go look at some trees,” he said, letting go. They hopped the guardrail at the end of the lane and made their way through the weeds toward the other road. Climbing a tiny rise dropped them into one of the official parking lots with trailheads leading off in different directions. It was a relief to see only a few cars in the lot.

Bart strolled right past the little hut with the smudged acrylic map, picking a trail that looked narrower and less worn. It was a mixture of packed dirt, roots, and fine gravel, unlike the flat gravel trails at the parks near them in Houston. It also had a fairly steep grade right off the bat, which normally Bart would enjoy running up—a good stretch for his calves—but today it felt like he was dragging his legs behind him in a sling.

Jaime, a few steps behind on the narrow path and working hard to keep up, managed to snag the flannel around his waist. “Are you sure about this?” He half-panted. “I don’t want you to push it, okay?”

“Maybe we can just...go slower?” Bart offered.  _ Bad idea. _

Jaime shook his head and reached for him. “Okay, if  _ you’re _ suggesting that, I’m taking you home right now.”

“No, wait. It’s just the grade. I’ll pick a less steep trail next time we cross one.”

Jaime muttered something in Spanish, looking up “at the angels above,” as Joan would have said.

“I’m not trying to be macho,” Bart promised, trying to catch his gaze. “Or worry you or give you a hard time. ...I  _ need _ this. Please.”

Jaime sighed again, putting both hands on his head and scrubbing at his hair for a moment. Then he nodded in reluctant agreement. “We go slow, and you  _ tell me _ if you start to feel bad. Entiendes?”

“Comprendo.” Bart mangled the word with a smile, leaning over to give him a quick kiss. 

He kept his word, slowing his pace and switching to a flatter trail when they crossed one. About a hundred meters down that trail, however, they reached the heavy green pipes of a Park Services gate. It appeared the “Sally Bridlemann trail” was closed for maintenance. Bart stared beyond the gate. The path forward had a gentle incline through evenly spaced deciduous trees. He didn’t know what kind they were, so he dubbed them crackly-brown-bark trees, with green and yellowish leaves.  _ Botanist.  _

If the trail was closed, they had a better chance of being alone. “Come on,” he told Jaime, climbing over the gate. “I want to keep going.”

Jaime shrugged and hopped it too.

Bart smirked at the move, a little surprised by Jaime’s lack of (false) resistance. “Look at you, breaking the rules for me.”

Jaime scoffed, seemingly affronted. “Skater for over a decade,” he reminded him.

“ _So_ hot,” Bart told him, grinning. But the smile quickly drained from his face. The image of burned bodies crossed his mind, making him queasy. _How could I be flirting right now?_ _It was just hours ago, how could I disrespect them like that?_

Abruptly, he turned back to the trail, trekking steadfastly ahead. He heard the quick crunch of gravel as Jaime caught up. They didn’t talk for a while. Through the thick locks of his hair in his peripheral vision, Bart could tell Jaime was on the verge of saying something a few times, but for whatever reason, he held back.

There weren’t many animals, but he did notice a few squirrels and heard occasional birdsong from the tops of the trees. The scarcity was fine with him. Taking solace in nature or the circle of life or whatever was supposed to make people feel better, but on rare occasions it left a bitter taste in his mouth. 

Yeah, he’d experienced more than his share of death—in the future, it was almost routine. But he’d spent 13 years in the present, where people had time to grieve. Sometimes watching the world go happily about its business, like the people who died didn’t matter, or like everyone’s grief was transient, was irritating.

The crunchy mix of gravel and dirt changed consistency to hard-packed dirt over stone, and other types of trees were starting to pop up in the midst of the crackly-brown-bark ones.

“Your eye shield’s coming out of your pocket,” Jaime said.

Bart shoved it back down with enough force to nearly rip the pocket seam. As soon as he did, he could feel it squirming its way back up with every step he took. “Screw this,” he muttered, casting around for a good place to stash it. A nearby fallen tree was as good a place as any. Venturing off the trail, he tucked the whole suit under the backside of the trunk, crammed right up underneath it. It cracked the red-tinted shield a little more and for some reason it felt  _ good _ to hear that _. _

“I’ll get it on the way back,” he told Jaime, who probably assumed as much.

The new section of trail allowed them to walk beside each other with room to spare, but they stuck so closely together that their arms brushed with every other step.

The trail smoothed further and leveled out, traversing the side of one more rise, until finally around the bend they saw its endpoint. It was a small clearing at the edge of the hill, more like a break in the trees, with only a weathered park bench and a decent, but not spectacular, viewpoint. The only sign of recent use was a forgotten half-full water bottle and a dusty wrapper tucked under one of the bench legs. There was nothing else, and more importantly, nobody else, there.

“Guess this is it,” Jaime said. “Still feeling okay?”

Bart smiled at him. “I’m good. No problemo.”

Jaime jerked his thumb at the trees behind them. “Right, I’m going to uh, use the facilities.”

“Watch out for ticks,” Bart called after him, because on rare occasions, he was kind-of an ass. Of course, Khaji Da would probably fry any bloodsuckers, anyway. The armor made a pretty good bug zapper when they were sitting around the lake drinking beer and laughing, and the mosquitoes got too bad.

Normal life. He couldn’t help but think about the people, and their families, who’d never experience that again. He rubbed his eyes and went over to the bench. On the front, facing the view, was a bronze dedication plaque.

_ In memory of Sally Bridlemann 1927-2005 _

_ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” _

_ Matthew 11:28-30 _

“Huh,” he said, reading the quote again—and again, lingering over the words  _ weary and burdened _ .

Almost cautiously, he sat down to one side of it. The bench’s rough but treated wood was warm from the afternoon sun, but there was just enough shade cast by the tall trees behind that it wasn’t boiling hot. While sitting, he could see a sliver of the lake beyond, glittering. 

It was a nice spot. The thing that made him uneasy was that sitting there would probably lead to talking, without distractions or really anywhere else to go. Talking about...all that happened. Some topics he might even  _ want _ to talk about, but at the same time he would do anything to avoid. But maybe they didn’t have to. Jaime wouldn’t push him.

Bart drew his knees up and planted his feet on the edge of the seat under him. He rested his inner elbows on top and linked his hands. It was a little cramped for a man his height, but his legs were flexible and the seat was a generous width. Normally he would have sprawled out, but that didn’t feel right.

He heard Jaime’s footsteps before the man himself dropped down beside him, close enough to touch but not intrude. Jaime twisted around to read the bench’s dedication too: “Huh.”  He stretched out his legs as usual, a stark contrast to Bart’s own still up on the bench. He also tipped his head in Bart’s direction, but he was looking out at the sparkle of the lake.

Maybe it was due to Bart’s posture, or maybe Jaime intuitively knew the right amount of space to give him. He was a comfortable, familiar presence, and he was patient. From the corner of his eye, Bart watched the rise and fall of his chest. “It’s pretty,” he said of the view, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, it is,” Jaime replied simply. “You picked a good spot.”

Habitually, Bart’s jaw slackened so his mouth could keep talking. He expected more words to roll off his tongue with their usual ease, but they didn’t come. His mind was blank, or caught in some kind of empty feedback loop. He felt numb.  _ Here we go _ was all he could think. 

After too many seconds of nothing, he asked for help. “...I don’t know what to say.”

Jaime shifted a bit, sitting up straighter. At Bart’s pause, he prompted. “About what happened.”

“Yeah.” Bart’s gaze drifted past the edge of the viewpoint to the far-away trees on the other side. “I don’t know what to say—and normally we'd joke about that, about me not talking for once...but I can’t, because it isn’t ‘normally,’ and nothing at all feels funny right now.” 

Jaime grimaced deeply, then looked down like he was trying to school his features. “You don’t have to force it.”

Bart shot him a weak smile and leaned sideways. Jaime wrapped an arm around his shoulders and tugged him in. 

When Bart closed his eyes the sun shone through his eyelids, but he heard the same high-pitched ringing that was all he could hear just after the explosion. He breathed in the smell and taste of burning electronics.

“Tim said it was an anti-cybernetics group. But right after it happened, for a nanosecond, I thought, what if it was someone coming after me? Because that was easier to comprehend than it happening at an ordinary workplace, with ordinary people, on an ordinary Tuesday.”

Jaime stroked his arm a little, waiting for him to continue. 

Bart tried clearing his scratchy throat again, but it didn’t help. His eyes stung. “At  _ my _ workplace—where there were between 115 to 135 ordinary, extraordinary, people—and probably half of them are dead now because of a cause that labels  _ Vic _ inhuman,” he said, bitterly aware of the irony.

His feet fell off the bench as he turned further into Jaime, who wrapped both arms around him and held on tight. He curved his palm across Bart’s nape, inviting him into the juncture between his shoulder and neck that his loose-collared t-shirt didn’t cover. 

Bart didn’t want to think about human ignorance and cruelty anymore. But then, no-one ever did. He drew a shaky breath and pressed his face into Jaime’s neck, because  _ that _ was all he’d wanted to do for hours. The tears cresting his bottom eyelids slipped free.

“But you did good,” Jaime said almost fiercely, as if willing him to listen. “You hear me? I saw how many people you got out, how many lives you saved today. If you hadn’t been there—” the conclusion was obvious.

“I knew some of the people who didn't make it,” Bart struggled to say, losing his grip on things. “I was friends with them, even if it was only a few months. I went to their birthday happy hours and a softball game and met their kids, and they didn’t know who I was outside of Bart Allen, and they didn’t care.  _ I _ was enough. Just me.” He thought of Katya, figuring out who he was right before she died.

Jaime inhaled sharply at  _ I was enough _ , but he didn’t speak.

“You’re always saying you want something normal, and I had it, and I  _ lost it _ , and it’s not  _ fair _ , what happened to them.” Bart said all at once, dissolving into a quiet sob. “It’s not fair.”  _ To me either _ , the selfish part of his brain whispered _. _

He could feel Jaime’s thumb stroking over his hairline on the back of his neck. It didn’t stop the images from flickering through his mind, but it gave him something else to try to focus on. He didn’t care that he couldn’t stop crying. Today of all days, it was justified. 

Jaime interlocked their legs on the ground, and Bart leaned more on his chest, arms around his waist. When he was able to speak coherently again, he admitted, “I feel selfish for being more upset over this than some of the other awful,  _ awful _ things we’ve seen.”

Finally, Jaime responded, his own voice rough. “You feel selfish for being more upset over friends dying than people you don’t know?”

Bart nodded against his collarbone. “I know it’s normal, but when I think about Chile or Myanmar...how  _ horrible _ it was, and how I managed to hold it together then. Does it make me a bad person?” He sniffled, then shook his head. “Today was terrible but it could’ve been a lot worse—we’ve  _ seen _ it a lot worse. If it had been a bigger bomb, it could’ve taken out the whole building and everyone in it....” 

He trailed off, feeling short of breath. His ribcage felt tighter, his lungs more constricted than a few minutes ago. He squirmed to try finding a more comfortable position, but the pressure didn’t let up; it only moved slightly. Tears that weren’t his own were trickling down the side of his face.

So slowly, the realization dawned on his exhausted mind: There was one last person still trapped in that building, and Bart needed to get him out.

“Jaime.” He tried gently pushing against his chest. “I’m sorry, I never should have said that. I’m so sorry. Look at me, please, I’m fine,” he pleaded. Finally, he managed to push back far enough to get a look at Jaime’s scrunched up face—at the tears clumping his lashes, streaming down his cheeks and dripping off his chin for who knew how long. It broke his heart.

“I’m here, I’m not going anywhere. I’m okay _. _ ” Sitting side by side, it was hard to get any closer, but Bart managed the last few inches by slinging his inside leg over both of Jaime's. He also freed his arm to stroke the back of Jaime’s head, his hair still sweaty and mussed from the stress and armor. “We’re okay.”

“What if you’d been by reception?” Jaime’s voice broke. “What if you’d been there, what if you’d been at that  _ stupid candy dish _ —.”

Automatically, Bart opened his mouth to say that he would’ve outrun it, but some stray instinct blocked the words from emerging.

If he’d been at reception and facing the parking lot, he might have been able to save a few more people, but he couldn’t have stopped the attack entirely. And if he’d been just a few steps beyond that, in the hallway where he found the first cluster of bodies, he wouldn’t have seen or heard the truck at all.

Even he couldn’t outrun a supersonic shock wave that he didn’t know was coming. If it’d been some other time of day—if he’d been walking, or in a lab somewhere, or at the front desk raiding the bag of Smarties that Jacob bought ‘specially for him—he  _ could have _ died. Just like Katya, and Laura, and Ush, and all the other people lined up under sheets and in body bags in the parking lot. 

The realization made his head spin and his stomach revolt, and it took some determination not to throw up again. Jaime could never know one iota of what just had played out in his mind.

“But I  _ wasn’t _ there,” he emphasized, maybe for them both. He moved his hand from Jaime’s hair to his cheek, interrupting the flow of tears and forcing him to meet Bart’s gaze. “I wasn’t. I’m here with you, and I’m alive, and I love you.  _ Siempre _ , right?”

Jaime pressed their foreheads together, snuffling, then kissed him. The salt stung his chapped lips. Jaime pulled back to catch another shuddering breath as his crying subsided, and Bart followed his mouth after.

“Te amo,  _ always _ ,” Jaime said when they drew apart.

For a while, they just held onto each other, existing as regular people and nothing else. Bart could read the clear signs of exhaustion on Jaime’s face and knew they matched his own. They were both still sniffling, dehydrated (very, in Bart’s case), and filthy (also very, in Bart’s case). His thoughts drifted to taking a shower, and  _ food _ , because he’d burned through at least three days’ worth of calories. Sleep, if he could get it. And tomorrow, he wanted to find someplace to just curl up together and do nothing else.

But for now...just down the trail was a hidden, ruined uniform, and Bart needed a little more time up here without it.

It must have registered in his expression, because Jaime stroked his cheek. “What is it?”

“Can we stay ten more minutes?”

“We can stay as long as you want. Nobody’s on the trail and I doubt the rangers come up here much.”

He dropped his head back onto Jaime’s shoulder, pleased when Jaime rearranged himself with one foot up on the bench so he could tuck Bart under his chin instead. Bart, who was a grown-ass man and half an inch taller and who shouldn’t appreciate it so much, but...screw it, sometimes he did, and his significant-boyfriend-partner probably knew that. Probably definitely.

He closed his eyes and let everything slow down. So late in the afternoon it was muggy as hell, but the evening breeze was stirring. He listened to two birds having what sounded like an argument. For once, he wasn’t impatient, just content. 

_ Thanks for lending us your bench, Sally Bridlemann. _

When they were finally ready to leave, Bart snagged the half-drunk water bottle and poured some onto his flannel sleeve. Back at the bench, he held Jaime’s chin and swiped the wet cloth across his salty tear tracks. “So they don’t get itchy under your faceplate,” he explained.

“You’re ridiculous and that’s kinda gross,” Jaime accused, with nothing but love in his voice. “You know, Khaji Da said earlier that he’s extremely glad you’re alive and that I ‘have you.’ Paraphrasing a little, but it was the nicest thing he’s ever said about anyone except himself.”

“Love you too, Bug.” A few years ago, Bart couldn’t have said the words even in jest. It had been a long process of building up trust, and it wasn’t so simple to shed the anger and resentment he’d carried for so long.

Jaime chuckled weakly, catching Bart’s damp wrist and holding it to his chest.

“If you want to leave, I’m gonna need that back,” Bart said, tugging gently. “My arm and me, we’re kind-of a team. I need it to get home.” There was no question as to where  _ home _ was.

Jaime’s eyebrows knit and he looked down at it. “Will you do something for me? Will you stay in sight until we hit the Zeta?”

Bart knew exactly how Jaime was feeling; he was intimately familiar with it, in fact. He flattened his hand against Jaime’s sternum. 

“When you were—by that guy? With the s—” He closed his eyes.  _ The sonic knife. _ “After, I didn’t want to let you out of my sight ever again…. But you know that, ‘cause I’m pretty sure you got sick of me ‘covertly’ following you around,” he snorted, the sound a little damp. He was surprised there was any moisture left in either of them, at this point. “So I get it. And anyway, I don't have a suit and I refuse to run at standard speed any more, so…airlift?” He dredged up a winsome smile.

“Just this once,” Jaime teased dryly, kissing Bart’s knuckles before releasing his wrist. “But you have to look injured or—” He broke off, curling in on himself.

Bart took Jaime’s hand in his newly freed one, finishing the thought. “So nobody wonders why you’re carrying a random healthy civilian. It’s okay. For once in my life, I’ll be still and quiet.”

“We could always take a rideshare from the parking lot instead.”

“I’d rather be quiet,” Bart intoned.

“Speed snob.”

Bart took a deep breath, pleased that his airway was almost back to normal. When he stood up, though, everything around them tilted and swayed a little. His stomach growled, and it was  _ loud _ .

Jaime grabbed his arm. “Can you make it to Armando’s?”

“Only if you call ahead,” Bart answered weakly, only half melodrama.

Jaime kissed him on the forehead, taking a step back as if to armor up.

“Wait,” Bart said. “I have to go get my suit.”

On the trail itself, the slanted light streamed through the trees wherever it could find a gap, but dusk was settling into the underbrush. It was getting close to sunset. Bart glanced over at Jaime in step beside him, who was half-watching his footing on the gravel. They passed through a beam of sunlight that illuminated his eyelashes, beautiful as always. They always made Bart’s heart skip, too.

His ruined suit was still hidden under the back of the fallen tree, puddled and smooth like a snake when he slipped it out. He stepped back on the trail, where Jaime put a hand between his shoulder blades. 

The thing about snakes, Gar taught him, was they shed their skin when a better, new one had grown underneath. ...But he wasn’t ready for that kind of change yet, so Bart balled up the suit and shoved it into one pocket beside his Flash ring. He snapped the eye shield into three separate pieces so it would fit in the other. “Now we can go.”

Jaime armored up to his chin, the Scarab wing skeleton fixing in place. “Sure you’re ready? We could find some food around here instead.”

“Let’s go home,” Bart said tiredly, before hastily amending, “But Armando’s first, ‘cause youcalleditinright?”

Jaime looked at him, seemingly puzzled. “How could I? I don’t have my phone and neither do you.”

Bart ran his hands through his hair. “Oh, this is so moded. Thisisveryreallybadandnotokay.”

Jaime’s face cracked into a smile. “Khaji used his connection to put in an online order six minutes ago.” 

Instantly, Bart felt the hangry urge to punch his partner in the stomach. But once the (brief) urge passed, he sighed with relief. “Good bug.”

He did a quick check of the area for people and then held out his arms like a child. “Carry me, lover.”

Jaime snorted and bent to pick him up in the _wrong kind_ _of carry._

Bart yelped, startled. “What the hell?!”

“Well, are we aiming for realistic or not? ‘Cause I couldn’t do the armpit thing if you were out cold,” Jaime said, sounding a little frustrated. He shifted Bart’s weight against him awkwardly and  _ might _ have even grunted.

Better that Jaime be frustrated than thinking about what they were playing at. Bart huffed through his nose, wrapping his arm around Jaime’s neck and grabbing his other wrist to help. He turned his face into the Beetle’s armored chest. “This is so embarrassing. Just wake me up when we get to Armando’s,” he said. Even though it was meant as a joke, it brought to his own attention how far beyond exhausted he was.

“By all means, try to take a nap in fifty mile-an-hour winds,” Jaime rejoined before the armor encased his head.

Bart grumbled some nonsense, but he was fading, fading fast as he did. 

Their trip back consisted of nothing but impressions: the background noise of wind and plasma engines, a brief light stabbing through his eyelids.  _ Zeta _ ? The sensation of landing, of Jaime shifting his weight a few times. At one point there was...grass?

The smell of food was what actually roused him. “At Armando’s?” He slurred, trying to get his bearings.

“Home.” Jaime answered. “I dropped you off here, made sure you were okay, then went back for the food."

When he opened his eyes, Jaime was sitting on the edge of their bed, waving a slice of pizza in front of his face. The open box was beside them, stacked on top of three more. 

“Love you,” Bart mumbled to Jaime, snatching and bolting down the proffered slice like an alligator with a chicken. He practically put his face in the open box as he rolled toward it. “Love you too, pizza.” 

One pie down, he frisbeed the empty box across the room and yanked open the second, using his other hand to accept their biggest water bottle from Jaime. “Can’t believe I slept through the Zeta,” he mumbled around his food.

“Me either. Or when I half-dropped you on the grass trying to armor down out of sight. You stirred a little, but then you were out again. I had to tell one of the neighbors that you’d passed out drunk.”

Bart shrugged, vaguely recalling it. After vacuuming up three pizzas, he slowed through the fourth. “Did you get yours?” He asked Jaime, who raised a previously-hidden fifth box. Sneaky. Experienced.

“Good,” Bart mumbled as he crammed a new piece into his mouth. He finished the fourth pie while Jaime was in the kitchen refilling the water bottle, and then eyed the forbidden fifth box.

“Here,” Jaime said, returning with the bottle in one hand and three more pizzas balanced on his other arm. He caught Bart’s questioning look. “When all eight were stacked, the bottom boxes were collapsing under the strain.” 

_ Love. this. man.  _ Bart accepted them from him gladly, moving to sit up against the headboard. Jaime plunked down on the bed beside him to do the same. Bart leaned his head on Jaime's shoulder, then paused with a full slice in his hand.

On the dresser across from them, Jaime must have emptied out his wallet last night, looking for a receipt or something. Among the many crumpled pieces of paper, cards, and a few dollars in cash was a bright blue visitor's pass to Mass Cybernetics; likely from two weeks prior, when he’d “come to visit” because Bart wanted him to meet Li Wei and the others.

Jaime, noticing Bart stop eating, followed his gaze.

“Fuck,” he said quietly, getting up to sweep the whole mess into the dresser drawer. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.” Bart rested his head on Jaime’s shoulder again when he returned to the bed. “Everything that happened,” he started, thinking out loud. “Sometimes I can’t  _ not _ think about it when I try, and sometimes, like a minute ago, I forget. Only it’s not really forgetting, because I’m just thinking about other things. Then it comes back. It’s like when Joan and Jay died."

“You know it takes a while for things to settle,” Jaime said gently, dropping his unwanted crust in the box on Bart’s lap for him to eat later.

“Yeah,” Bart nodded. “It hasn’t even been a day yet—jeez, half a day.” Mechanically, he ate most of the slice in his hand. Of course it didn’t taste good anymore. “A lot of it doesn’t feel real yet. Hasn’t sunk in. Like...I’m not going to my internship tomorrow. I’m not going to...see some people again.” His stomach clenched with a pang of grief. “This one's really gonna hurt. But for better or worse, I know what to expect.”

Jaime kissed his temple in support. His five-o-clock shadow was comfortingly scratchy.

“Shit, I should call Grandma,” Bart realized, about to scramble up.

“I already texted everyone important and told them you were physically okay but needed some time.”

“You’re the best,” Bart enthused.

“I am pretty great,” Jaime agreed. He stacked the rest of empty boxes on the floor, ignoring the ones Bart had tossed across the room earlier. “C’mere,” he said instead, scooching down.

They were absolutely filthy and had just added pizza grease to their list of contaminants, but at the moment, it looked like neither of them gave a rat’s ass. Bart flopped down and wriggled over into Jaime’s arms and halfway onto his chest, feeling Jaime spit out some of his sooty hair. He’d have to do some serious big spooning or something later in the week to even things out.

He was just really, really grateful to listen to Jaime’s heartbeat through his t-shirt.

It was how he fell asleep again.

**FIN**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) The third "chapter" is alternate ending that I wrote first; I changed it for a few reasons, but there are still parts I love and that I think have merit, so I'm cleaning it up to post.
> 
> 2) I’ve never been to Lowell. Mass Cybernetics is a pretty clear stand-in for another company in the area. There’s also no such trail. I just like lying.
> 
> 3) I truly welcome constructive criticism; improving as a storyteller and writer is important to me.
> 
> 4) I may write a scene from Khaji Da’s POV, because he’s silent throughout this.


	3. Alternate Catharsis Scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The original version of the catharsis scene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the original catharsis scene, which takes place in a church. I wanted to post it because the dialog flows better, and I think it has merit in other ways. Because I adapted parts of it for chapter two, there's overlap, and it's less polished because I haven't done any final edits. But, it's still in good shape. (I'm not Catholic, so please feel free to point out mistakes.)

\--------

He crossed another intersection. Pausing on the other side, he hopped in place on one foot while he tugged at the opposite boot. The pair he had on were more like backups, already through most of their usable life and never intended for a scenario like today. 

The composite soles looked not great, but okay; they were made to withstand extreme friction and the resultant heat. But they were also finished with a thin layer of polyurethane, and that layer was peeling off by his heel, flapping around and annoying him.

Frustrated, he plunked down on a set of concrete steps for only a moment to pull at the flapping part, watching as tiny little pieces crumbled off and stuck to his hands. “Uuuugh. Stupid moded boots, can’t even—”

“Everything okay?” Jaime asked, landing beside him.

“Stupid moded boots,” he repeated, because it was worth repeating. “Traction layer’s going, but it’s not going down easy. Guess I’m switching to sneakers now.” He made a face as he started pulling them off, dramatically tossing them over his shoulder one after another. It was better not to fixate on how discolored and beaten up they were.

When he laced up the pair of running shoes he’d scavenged at Goodwill, he double-knotted them out of habit. He’d had enough of tripping over broken or untied laces, and the consequences that followed, in the future, thanks. 

The new shoes looked funny on his feet while the rest of him was in uniform. Maybe he should just change now; not like he was going near fast enough to make running in civvies difficult. Sighing quietly, he collected his ruined boots, then popped up onto his sneakered feet.

Looking up and down the street for people and cameras, he pulled his ring out of the suit’s tiny ankle pocket (because wearing it while moving debris was a dumb idea), and then vibrated out of what remained of it. The jeans and tee fit reasonably well. The only problem was, the damaged material of his uniform wasn’t responding properly and refused to go back inside the ring. “Stupid moded uniform,” he grumbled, balling it up, prepared to carry it.

“Let’s go,” he said to Jaime, who was looking up at the building attached to the steps.

“Hold up,” Jaime said.

“I won’t go fast,” Bart protested.

“That’s not it. Come here for a second.” 

Jaime sounded distracted and…reflective? Curious, Bart stood at his side and followed his gaze. The steps he’d been sitting on belonged to an older-looking church, of all places. 

“What about stopping here?” Jaime asked.

“What about—? In there?” Bart asked, shooting Jaime an incredulous glance. He leaned back to look up at the church spire with him. “Is this your upbringing talking? Are you channeling a relative?” 

“I don’t think so,” Jaime said hesitantly, turning halfway toward him. Bart had mostly learned to read his face through the armor a long time ago, and right now, he looked contemplative. Like he was examining a thought or problem from different angles. 

Jaime motioned at a plaque on the church wall next to the steps. “Just, read the first line.” 

Bart cocked his head, but stepped forward.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  
Matthew 11:28-30

Bart read it again, slower. Inexplicably, the words made his throat tighten, and he waited until it passed. “That’s a nice quote, but I’m not religious,” he said, turning back to Jaime. “And you’re not practicing.”

Jaime stepped forward, surprising Bart by taking his hand. Granted, the street appeared totally empty, but it was still pretty unusual. “You’re right,” he said, looking Bart in the eyes. “But, I don’t know how much that matters right now. I’m not trying to pressure you, okay? We can just keep going,” he emphasized the last two sentences.

Looking at the double wooden doors before them made Bart nervous for some reason. He glanced at the plaque again. “Do you think they’d even let us in?”

Jaime’s armored hand squeezed his bare one. “I do,” he said simply.

Bart swallowed hard—ow—and released Jaime’s hand. He looked at his ruined suit, not wanting to carry it around, unsure what to do with it.

“Leave it out here,” Jaime suggested, having retracted his wings. “You can pick it up again later...and everything that comes with it.”

Bart breathed in, then shoved the suit deep under some bushes by the stairs. He looked at the church doors, around at the still-empty street, and then at Jaime. “You gonna armor down?” He asked, waiting. “I think there’s an alley over there.”

Jaime frowned slightly at the door. “Actually, I have an idea. Follow my lead.” 

O-kaaay. “Sure, then you go first.”

The heavy right-side door audibly creaked when Jaime opened it—only a few feet, because he poked his head in first. Guess I’m not the only one who’s a little uneasy, Bart thought, admittedly a bit smug.

Apparently satisfied, Jaime opened the door all the way, stepping through and beckoning Bart in. The interior wasn’t that different from the church in El Paso that he’d gone to with Jaime’s whole family on a few holidays, although this one was more modest. There was a big middle section, with pews predictably separated by the center aisle. Parallel to the aisle, tall white pillars in the shape of arches held up the roof, with smaller pews on the other side of them. The altar, the pulpit, the stained glass windows and various religious figures—those were all reasonably familiar.

They only saw four people inside. Two women were praying near the altar and an older man was sleeping in a pew by the door, but they didn’t look up as Jaime and Bart entered. The fourth person, however, was the priest standing beside the pulpit. He was holding a pen and some paper like he’d been making notes when they walked in. Do priests rehearse for sermons? He’d have to ask Jaime later.

Just like everyone else they’d met today, the priest’s eyes went wide at the sight of them; probably because the Blue Beetle, who was in battle dress, was just hanging out six feet inside his church, with a sloppy, singed person fidgeting beside him.

Without moving forward, Jaime pitched his voice a little louder. “We’re sorry for the interruption, Father.” 

Bart, on the other hand, took a full step back and a half-step behind Jaime as the women by the altar turned to gape at them, too. The acoustics in the place were already too good. 

“Would it be all right if we came in for a while?” Jaime continued, because his parents had taught him to be polite. Not that Bart wasn’t polite, it was just Jaime could take it to a whole new level sometimes.

The priest blinked a few times, seemed to recover, and nodded earnestly. “Of course. Of course you can. Everyone is welcome here.” He waved them further in and also walked down the aisle to meet them.

“Uh—” Bart murmured, unsure, taking another step back.

“Oh my son, you look terrible,” said the priest as he reached them. He was looking at Bart. “I heard about that tragic explosion at the cybernetics firm earlier; it even rattled the windows here. Were you part of the rescue efforts?”

“We were,” Jaime answered for them. “But respectfully, we’d rather not talk about it.”

What seemed to be genuine empathy shone in the father’s eyes. “I understand. Come in, sit down.”

“Actually, Father, is there somewhere private that my friend and I can go, so I don’t have to wear this?” He gestured to his armor. “I know it’s a strange thing to ask, but I’d really appreciate it.”

“Yes, you can use my office,” the priest offered. If he’d picked up on the fact that the request meant Bart knew the Blue Beetle’s secret identity, he didn’t let on. For that matter, he didn’t seem to question why the Blue Beetle was accompanied by a random dirty civilian.

Bart would have tugged at Jaime’s sleeve, if the armor had one. “Uh—Blue, hang on a sec.”

Jaime stopped, looking at the priest. “Could you give us a moment?”

The priest nodded, walking back up the aisle.

As soon as he had, Bart got right up into Jaime’s face to ensure there’d be no misreading of his own very expressive expression. “You want to go sit and talk in a priest’s office, where a painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary or baby Jesus or half a dozen saints or all of the above will almost certainly be staring down at you and probably judging you the whole time?”

Jaime shrugged. “Sounds like my great aunt’s house. I’m used to it.”

“Well, I’m not,” Bart hissed loudly.

His gaze roved past Jaime’s shoulder and lit on something else he recognized. “Could we—” He started asking before his rational mind caught up. But...sometimes his impulses were his best ideas. “Could we sit in there instead?” He asked, pointing to the confessional booths tucked away in the corners of the church. They promised privacy and quiet.

Jaime looked and sounded amused. “Bart, we couldn’t fit in there. It’s really small, not made for two people.”

“It looks big enough.”

“It’s not one big space, it’s two little ones; one for the priest and one for the parishioner. I thought you’d seen them before.”

“Yeah, in movies,” Bart shrugged, unfazed by that, at least. “I don’t want to talk in that guy’s office. So, can we just try?”

Jaime gently bit his lip through the armor, then turned and walked over to the priest. “Excuse me, Father, but do you happen to have another room; something else small and private?”

“I’m sorry.” The priest shook his head. “We only have two other rooms, and they’re used for group gatherings or daycare. My office is the closest to what you’re looking for.”

Jaime sighed through his nose. “...Then, and I know we’re piling strange on strange here, would it be possible for us to use a confessional? Just the two of us?”

Bart twitched forward. “I promise we won’t do any—uh, we won’t get any soot on your upholstery.” Hopefully, that saved it; like he said, he’d seen...movies. “And for the record, it’s all my idea, not Blue’s, he’s totally normal.”

“I see….Well, it’s highly unusual without a priest, but given the circumstances,” the Father repeated Jaime’s words kindly, “you have my blessing. In the figurative and literal sense of the word.”

Bart felt his smile finally rise to the surface. I bet he uses that joke all the time, just like Barry. The comparison took away a little of his anxiety. “Crash, thank you so much.” Yeah he’s not going to know what crash means, dumbass.

“Well, you can stay for as long as you like. If you need anything, I’ll just be in my office on the other side.” He pointed.

“Thank you. Really,” Jaime chimed in.

“And...if either or both of you would like to confess, I’d be honored to hear it.” He smiled at them warmly, but at the same time sadly, before walking away.

Bart leaned toward Jaime. “Okay, he wasn’t as scary as I thought he’d be,” he stage-whispered.

Jaime turned to him. His eyebrows were, as Joan used to say, ‘raised higher than the Good Lord above.’ (See, he knew some church stuff.)

“You’ve been to Easter mass with my family—with mi Abuela Mariposa—where she introduced you to Father Rogelio as her favorite grandson’s ‘very good friend and roommate Bartholomew.’”

“Shut up, it’s different,” Bart said, ducking his head and making a beeline for the confessional, his ears probably tomato red under the soot.

Their flight through the city and attempts at banter had been adequate white noise. Now, when Bart opened the door into the small darkened space with ornate cut-out motifs and soft diamond-patterned light, which was clearly intended for a single person and a single purpose, he froze.

Stepping inside meant talking about things, up close and personal, no way to back out or run. Talking about...everything that happened behind them, to both him and Jaime.

Jaime, whose hands rested flat against his shoulder blades. He nudged Bart into the booth, where Jaime was right: they barely fit, then shut the door after them.

Suddenly, they were alone together in the fractured dim light and expectant silence. It was everything Bart thought he wanted five minutes ago, but now that he had it….

Jaime retracted all of his armor in one liquid motion and Bart just stared at his face in the gloom. He'd seen it last night on their video call, because Bart had been invited out with people and Jaime had an early shift, so he hadn’t run down to Houston. The what-if circled his mind, looking for a way in.

Both of them stood completely still with barely a foot between them in the tiny box—and this was a stupid idea, why didn’t Bart listen? For a few seconds, the only sound was his own slightly raspy mouth-breathing and Jaime’s quickening but quiet exhalations through his nose.

“...What am I supposed to say?” Bart finally whispered, feeling his own eyes grow wider and wider as he stared at Jaime a foot away. “Because I don’t know what to say…and normallywe'djokeaboutthat, but I don’tthinkthisisthekindofplaceforjokes even though God’ssupposedtohaveasenseofhumor because nothingatallseemsfunnyrightnow.”

Somewhere in the middle of his rambling, he’d started to tremble; it managed to shake loose the tears now cresting his lower eyelids. “So what am I supposed to say?” He whispered desperately, still looking at Jaime for the answers.

Jaime fell forward, wrapping his arms around him and holding on tight. He curved his palm across Bart’s nape, inviting him into the juncture between his shoulder and neck that his loose-collared t-shirt didn’t cover.

Bart drew a wildly shaky breath and pressed his face in deeper, because it was all he’d wanted to do for hours. His eyes fully welled up and then spilled over.

“You did good,” Jaime said almost fiercely, as if willing Bart to listen. “Do you hear me? I saw how many people you got out. You saved so many lives today. You saved them.”

“But I knew some of the ones I couldn’t save.” Bart barely got through the words, rapidly losing his grip on speaking normally. “I was friends with some of them, even if it was only a few months. I went to their birthday happy hours and a softball game and met their kids, and they didn’t know who I was outside of Bart Allen, and they didn’t care.”

Jaime held him securely but didn’t speak, maybe sensing there was more to it. Or maybe crying himself. 

“You’re always saying you want something normal, and I had it, and I lost it and it’s not fair, what happened to them.” Bart sobbed quietly.

He could feel Jaime’s thumb stroking over the hairline on the back of his neck. It didn’t stop the images from flickering through his mind, but it gave him something else to try to focus on. He couldn’t stop crying but he wasn’t trying either. Today of all days, it was more than justified. Jaime turned them to sit on the hard little bench, where they had to angle their upper bodies and weave their legs together just to fit. Bart leaned into his neck and chest again, arms around his waist.

“And I feel selfish for being more upset over this than over the other horrible, horrible things we’ve seen,” he admitted.

Finally, Jaime responded, his voice rough. “You feel selfish for being more upset over friends dying than people you don’t know?”

Bart nodded against his clavicle. “I know it’s normal, but then I think about Chile or Myanmar...how awful it was, and how I held it together then. Does that make me a bad person? Today was terrible but it could’ve been a lot worse; we’ve seen it a lot worse.” He trailed off, feeling short of breath. 

The band around his lungs had tightened substantially. He squirmed, but the pressure didn’t relent, only shifted slightly. Slowly, the realization dawned on his exhausted mind: 

He had one more person to get out of that building.

“Jaime.” Bart tried extricating himself by pushing against his chest. “Hey, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Look at me, I’m fine,” he pleaded. Finally he managed to squirm far enough back to get a look at Jaime’s scrunched up face—at the tears clumping his lashes, streaming down his cheeks and dripping off his chin for who knew how long. It broke his heart.

“I’m here, I’m not going anywhere. I’m okay. We're okay.” Sitting side by side, it was hard to get any closer, but he slung his inside leg over both of Jaime's in an attempt. He also freed an arm to stroke the back of Jaime’s head, his hair still sweaty and mussed from the stress and armor. “We’re okay.”

“What if you’d been by reception?” Jaime’s voice broke on a sob. “What if you’d been there, what if you’d been at that stupid candy dish—”

Automatically, Bart opened his mouth to say he would’ve outrun it, but something caught the words before they could escape. If he’d been at reception and facing the parking lot, he might have been able to save a few more people, but he couldn’t have stopped it from happening entirely. And just a few steps beyond that, in the hallway where he found the first cluster of bodies, he wouldn’t have seen or heard the truck at all.

That was the problem with a situation like this. Even Bart couldn’t outrun a supersonic shock that he didn’t know was coming. If it’d been some other time of day—if he’d been walking or in a lab somewhere, or at the front desk raiding the bag of Smarties Jacob bought specially for him—he could have died. Just like Katya, and Laura, and Ush, and all the other people lined up under sheets and in body bags in the parking lot.

The realization made his head spin and his stomach revolt, and it took some determination not to throw up again. Jaime would never know one iota of what had just played out in his mind.

“But I wasn’t—I wasn’t there.” He moved his hand from Jaime’s hair to his cheek, interrupting the flow of tears. “I’m here with you, and I’m alive, and I love you. Siempre, right?”

Jaime pressed their foreheads together, snuffling, then kissed him. The salt stung his chapped lips. When Jaime pulled back to catch another shuddering breath, his crying subsiding, Bart chased after his lips when he was ready.

“Always. Te amo,” Jaime said when they drew apart. 

They held each other, just existing for a minute. Bart could read the clear signs of exhaustion on Jaime’s face and knew they matched his own. They were also both sniffling and filthy. His thoughts drifted to taking a shower, and food, because he’d burned through all his calories and then some. And tomorrow, he wanted to find some sunshine and curl up together; Jaime’s eyelashes were beautiful in the sunlight.

But outside the church door lay a crumpled, ruined uniform, and Bart wanted, maybe needed, a few more minutes in here. 

It must have registered in his expression, because Jaime stroked his cheek. “What is it?”

“Can we stay five more minutes?”

“We can stay as long as you want. I don’t think the priest is going to kick us out.”

He dropped his head back onto Jaime’s shoulder, pleasantly surprised when Jaime rearranged himself to tuck Bart under his chin instead. He was a grown-ass man who shouldn’t appreciate it, but, okay, sometimes he did, and his more-than-boyfriend probably knew it. Probably definitely.

He closed his eyes and let everything slow down. For once, he wasn’t impatient, just content.

When they were finally ready to leave their temporary sanctuary, Bart darted out to the small cistern of holy water (when nobody was looking) and dipped in part of his sleeve. Back in the confessional, he grabbed Jaime’s chin and gently swiped the wet flannel over his salty tear tracks. “So they don’t get itchy under your faceplate,” he explained.

“You’re ridiculous,” Jaime accused, with nothing but love in his voice. “Khaji Da said earlier that he’s really, really glad you’re here and that I have you. Paraphrasing a little, but, it was the nicest thing he’s ever said about anyone except himself.”

“Love you too, Bug.” Words that Bart couldn’t even have said in jest, a few years ago. It had been a long road of building up trust and untangling the snarl of old anger and resentment in his chest.

Jaime chuckled weakly, snagging Bart’s wet wrist and holding it to his chest.

“You know, if we want to leave, I’m gonna need that back,” Bart said, tugging gently at it. “My arm and me, we’re kind-of a team. I need it to get home.” There was no question as to where home was.

Jaime’s eyebrows knit and he looked down at it. “...Will you do something for me? Will you stay in sight until we hit the Zeta?”

Bart’s heart skipped a beat, because he knew exactly what Jaime was feeling. He flattened his hand against his sternum. “When you were—by that guy? With the s—” the breath left him. The sonic knife. “After, I didn’t want to let you out of my sight ever again. But you know that; I’m pretty sure you got sick of me ‘covertly’ following you around,” he chuckled, the sound a little damp. He was surprised there was any moisture left in either of them, at this point. “So I get it. Anyway, I don't have a suit and I refuse to run at standard jogging speed any more, so…airlift?” He smiled winningly.

“Just this once,” Jaime teased, pecking him on the nose before releasing his wrist. “But you need to look injured or—” He broke off, looking a little green even in the dim light.

Bart picked up Jaime’s hand with his newly freed one, finishing the thought. “So nobody wonders why you’re carrying a random civilian. It’s okay. For once in my life, I’ll be still and quiet.”

“We could always take a rideshare.”

“I’d rather be quiet,” Bart intoned.

“Speed snob.”

Bart took a deep breath, pleased that his airway was almost back to normal. When he stood up, though, the confessional spun and he might have teetered a little. His stomach growled, and it was loud.

Jaime grabbed his arm. “Can you make it to Armando’s?”

“Only if you call ahead,” Bart answered weakly.

Jaime kissed him on the forehead then stepped back to armor up.

The light coming through most of the stained glass windows had diminished, but the one facing west was radiant from the sunset. 

Jaime paused before the threshold to cross himself and issue a short prayer and Bart waited patiently with him. The backs of their hands touched, warm armor to skin. The priest was nowhere to be seen. They'd have to write him a really grateful letter or two, and donate to the church food bank or something.

Bart’s ruined suit was still there when they walked out, puddled and smooth like a snake. Surreptitiously, Jaime touched the small of his back in support. The thing about snakes, Gar had taught him, was that they shed their skin when a better, new one had grown underneath.

...But he wasn’t ready for that yet, so he balled it up and shoved it into his jeans pocket alongside his Flash ring.

Blue Beetle’s wing scaffolding snapped into place. “Sure you’re ready to go? We could find some food around here instead.”

“Let’s go home,” Bart said tiredly, hastily amending, “But Armando’s first, ‘cause youcalleditinright?”

“Khaji Da did before we walked out.”

Bart nodded in relief. “Good bug.” He did a quick check of the strangely deserted street and then held out his arms like a child. “Carry me, lover.”

Jaime snorted and bent to pick him up in the wrong kind of carry.

\--------

(Everything after this is the same as chapter two)

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a possible idea for “Tuesday” in my little fluffy series, because I randomly decided I wanted to include “a sprinkling of angst.” And wow, that did not go as planned, because this spiraled out of control.
> 
> Disclaimer city: I’m not a first responder (of any kind) or medical professional. I used Bart’s speed healing to fudge a little on his O2 time and, obviously, physical recovery. Please correct me on anything I get wrong because I like knowing.
> 
> 2) Went with “Drake” for Tim (from the most recent YJ run) because it’s a decade later and I don’t love the Red Robin ID, either. Poor Tim, with his crappy names. For that matter, I don’t know that Bart would still be holding onto “Kid Flash,” but it was easier for now.
> 
> 3) You _might_ have noticed that Bart uses the metric system despite living in the U.S. He grew up with it in the future and uses it for all his science-ing, so it made more sense to me.


End file.
